In many respects, New Zealand’s accepted governance framework for amateur sport mirrors that of the nation more generally. Within sporting codes, clubs which are formed on the basis of a local interest to offer sport to the community, periodically, (through a democratic process), elect representatives at a regional (and national) level to ensure that their sport (in terms how how the game played) is administered in in accordance with generally accepted principles of good governance, for the benefit of all participants.
Like our general government, national sport organisations (NSOs) should therefore operate on a “consent-to-govern” basis, whereby policies affecting the sport at a grassroots level are not implemented by fiat on a unilateral, top-down basis, without appropriate consultation or agreement of, "the electorate".
Doing so runs the risk of disenfranchising the very participants who would otherwise choose to play (and administer) the game at a community level. (This may only hasten the extinction event that this Association has long predicted as a possible outcome of the current legislative and regulatory change affecting ICSOs).
There is a real risk of governance overeach in the current period of mandatory constitutional change, given some NSOs are directing affiliated clubs to adopt constitutional templates they have created on a top-down basis, on the premise that this will minimise the costs the club might otherwise incur in having its unique circumstances considered. As a result, a grassroots club may lose all (or some of) its sovereignty as a uniquely incorporated entity.
A 2018 paper1 identifies a broad range of factors which have led to sport governance failures at an international and national level, (which have in many cases challenged these governing organisations' legitimacy), including (but not limited to) failures in: democratic structures, accountability, transparency, fairness, social responsibility, codes of ethics and conflicts of interest, and access to and timely disclosure of information.
The governance principles "of the people, by the people, for the people" expressed at Gettysburg in 1863, are no less relevant today, as they were 162 years ago.
While NSOs are representative of their affiliated ICSO clubs, they should be wary of assuming that their consent to govern provides the mandate to reform ICSOs in a manner which (given ICSO access to the knowledge, competence, skill and resources they may not currently possess), ICSOs would not otherwise agree to.
1Milena M. Parent & Russell Hoye (2018) - The impact of governance principles on sport organisations’ governance practices and performance. Cogent Social Sciences, 4:1, 1503578, DOI: 10.1080/23311886.2018.1503578